


Another Sunset, This One Fiery

by Indigo55



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family, Grief, Kids growing up, Leaving Home, Parenthood, Problems between parents, sudden change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 01:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17930000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indigo55/pseuds/Indigo55
Summary: It’s been almost three years since Aidan Scamander’s nuptials, and he and his wife are expecting to make Newt and Tina first-time grandparents in three months' time. This is exciting enough, but there’s even more goings-on in the family…two weeks ago their next-oldest child and oldest daughter was offered specialized Auror training as part of an experimental program launched by the International Confederation of Wizards, an advanced training regime drawing the best potential Auror cadets from all over the Wizarding world to its hosting entity, the New Zealand Ministry. She leaves fifteen days from now and will be gone at least three years. She is eighteen years old.





	Another Sunset, This One Fiery

Tina is incredibly proud of and thrilled for Dinah, the child named after her mother. They are close, and very alike, even if in looks Dinah takes after her father more. In Dinah, Tina sees the ambitious Auror cadet she once was; she knows this is the opportunity of a lifetime for her. She is eagerly looking forward to watching her firstborn daughter spread her wings and begin a brilliant career.

Newt is also incredibly proud of Dinah…and quite devastated. He was prepared for three years of Auror training at the London Academy, not Auckland; weekends and holidays spent in the family home. Even worse is, he feels guilty on top of the devastation, because this is nothing but a good thing, isn't it, this singling out of his child, this recognition of her ability. _She’s going to be an amazing Auror, just like her mother, and her uncle; she gets it from both sides, actually. And this kind of start will place her perfectly to gain the notice of the worldwide Wizarding community…who knows how far she might go?_

It's tremendous. The best thing that could have happened to her. Newt hates it.

He has not had time to adjust.

It’s just…it’s just he thought he might have her for a little while more. Yes, yes, she’s of age right now, but he was thinking…not til after her 21st birthday would she be doing any serious traveling. But that was BNZ – Before New Zealand. Before that glorious opportunity beckoned. To an eighteen-year-old.

 _Merlin’s beard, that’s young to be moving to the other side of the world, all by herself. Why, she’s scarcely ever been away from home, if you don’t count school._ He didn't; to him, Hogwarts was just an extension of home. Of course, the fact that when _he_ was eighteen, it was wartime and he was at the front working with the Ironbellies, having gone to Romania at _seventeen_ , didn't seem to him to have any relevance to the present situation. And not because he’d been a wizard and Dinah was a witch, either. Newt did not allow himself to play that tired old game.

Just now, a part of him thought that was too bad…

But he has done his best job, a yeoman job, of covering up how complicated his feelings are about the situation; not even Tina knows the depths of his distress, he thinks. And it’s been quite frustrating, to be honest: because try as he might to spend more time with Dinah, always inviting her to help him in creature-care, wanting only to have what time might be left to him with his daughter before she departs from under his roof, possibly forever, it’s been no good. She's been all wrapped up with her preparations to go…with her mother playing the major role there and with her nearly constantly. He does not want to ever be in the position of resenting his wife over the kids, it’s never been something that’s ever reared its ugly head, but – what can he do?

_What you've always done with Tina. What you've always been able to do…talk to her about it. Be honest._

But _this_ …is different. He knows Tina is letting go of their daughter in her own way; it’s exactly why she’s so intensely involved with her. _They have so much in common, after all…_

 _But she’s cutting me out! This isn't fair…I don’t even_ want _this!_

What a traitorous thought that was. Did he want to deprive Dinah? Of anything?

 _How can I be like this?_ he brooded at his desk. _Look at Tina, she’s over the moon! And she’s right. She’s right to be happy for her daughter._ I _am happy for her, too. I’m her father, for heaven’s sake. How can I_ not _be happy? Completely delighted! Transported! Utterly bloody overjoyed!_

_Oh, dammit to hell! Bugger it all! FUCK IT!!!_

He picked up and threw a rather heavy compendium of magical herbs against his office wall. It exploded into a blizzard of etchings of plants. Now he felt slightly ashamed for losing his temper, too.

_Why do I have to be ever so happy half a world away?_

The reality was: no one could beat Newt Scamander at resentful angst-filled sulking when he really put his mind to it; his brother Theseus could tell you all about it.

“Did I hear something, sweetheart? Is everything okay?” The destruction of the compendium had drawn Tina. Of course.

A quick wand wave reassembled the mess in seconds, just as the tall American light of his life came through his office door. Putting on his most artless expression, he looked at her and said, “Everything’s fine here, love. I just accidentally dropped a book.”

 _He’s bullshitting me,_ Tina knew instantly. If anyone on the planet knew this man, it was Porpentina Esther Goldstein Scamander; and she knew well his capacity for, shall we say, eliding certain realities if it suited him. Newt was never callous, an unprincipled flat-out liar…on the contrary, he was a very _principled,_ _sometimes_ -flat-out liar. He never hesitated to shade the truth if it served the mission he was on…usually the saving and protection of creatures in his care, who were helpless and at the world’s mercy without his intervention. He had learned long, long ago not to trust to the world’s mercy.

So it was that this wizard was bullshitting Tina Goldstein the minute she met him, as she soon found out; and just a bit later she found out he was also one of the finest men she’d ever met. Things progressed from there.

“So.” Seeing she had to investigate this, the witch perched on the edge of her husband’s desk and gave him one of _those_ looks. “I've hardly had time to say two words to you in the past week, Newt,” she opened, “I've been so busy, between helping Dinah figure out what she needs for Auckland, and shopping for her. Everything okay in the basement?”

“Basement is fine, Tina,” he answered, as he glanced through some notes for his next edition of _FBAWTFT_ …a bit ostentatiously.

Her bullshit detector was shrieking on red alert.

 _Uh-oh, something_ is _up. I know, I've been neglecting him, I've just been so busy…OH, so very busy, aren't you? Bushwa, Goldstein,_ she told herself, _the only one you've had time for since Dinah's training offer is Dinah and that’s no accident. You want every instant with her you can get before she leaves…and being so so busy with her means you can pretend that your husband…you know, that guy you married and got all these kids with? …the most wonderful man you've ever known?... isn't about to curl up and die over all this._

Of course she was cognizant that Newt was hurting. For him not to be, placed in this, would not be Newt. And she was ashamed of how she had been ignoring it, because –

“Honey, I have been so selfish,” she burst out. Newt started and focused his gaze on his desktop.

“Erm, h-how is that?” _As if I don’t know,_ he thought rather savagely, which rattled him all the more. He felt, unbidden, an anger awakening in him, the result of hiding, of tamping down, of downplaying his passions for weeks now. He glanced briefly at his Tina on the other side of the desk and saw reflected in those dark liquid eyes he so loved, dismay…apprehension…guilt. She was reacting to what she saw in his vivid blue-green ones…in a word, rage. If wizards could shoot energy spells out of their eyes, his desktop would have been ablaze.

 _We are about to have one helluva fight,_ she mused. They seldom had serious arguments, but they did occur. Usually it was precisely because of this kind of situation: one of them had been sitting on their feelings, strong feelings, for too long.

Tina squared her shoulders – _I've got this coming, better take it like a woman_ – and said, "Okay, Tarot on the table, Newt. Let's get everything out into the open."

"I don't know what you mean," gritted the reason for her existence, now fixedly staring at a point just over her left shoulder. So he was going to be stubborn, too, another Scamander specialty. On the inside, he was at sea. His wife had let him down, betrayed him, in a way, and betrayal…he had too much and too intense a history with that not to react badly.

For her part, Tina became with each passing second in less and less of a mood to beat around the flutterby bush. Her guilt receded the more she thought about her daughter, _their_ daughter; _This should be all about_ her _, not you, Newt._ Irritation was perversely beginning to rise in her heart. _Doesn't he see? Why can't he think about her instead of himself?_

She said, "Dinah has been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you have any idea what this is for a new Auror? Do you realize how many others would give their freaking _wands_ to be in her place? She was selected for one of only _thirty_ openings in the inaugural class – out of all the cadets all over the world. This is _huge_ , Newt! To achieve something like this, it demonstrates how enormously talented she – ”

"Do not," her husband said, in a quiet, deadly voice, glaring at the wall to his right, "presume to tell me, to _lecture_ me, about how extraordinary our daughter is. I have known she's like no one else from the moment she was born." Then he did something that told Tina she was in real trouble – he looked straight at her, and went on, "Not because she has this skill or that, or because she won some kind of competition. And certainly not because she's 'like me,' and wants to pursue a career 'like mine'." That was a rather low blow; the witch could have taken it as a signal of the intensity of his fury, but she couldn't be that detached just then. She felt her face growing warm, then hot, as Newt finished, "To me, she _just is."_

"Are you suggesting that my love for my daughter is in any way conditional? You don't want to go there, Newt." Tina's expressive brown eyes were snapping, sparking.

His eyes now glassy with wrath, he hurled at her, "Why not, Tina? Why not? What are you going to do? Keep my daughter from me? Monopolize her every waking moment until she steps into the Floo network, or a portkey, or boards a ship, and goes out of my life for who knows how long, really? Don't you think you've already begun to execute that plan?!" Mixed with the hot anger came over-bright eyes; he clenched his jaw, muscles working, hands balled into fists on his desk, again staring down, averting his eyes.

Seeing this, his wife was visited by the ghost of a memory from years ago: watching him hand a bowtruckle over to a goblin in exchange for information, and how it tormented him to do so. And she was appalled, as she finally realized just what she'd done; probably the worst thing anyone could do to Newt Scamander. She'd separated him from one of his creatures…a creature in his care for many years. One of his most precious. In doing so, she'd put her own desires first. And she then tried to fob him off with declarations of how grand this was for Dinah, to shame him for resisting this, for being a father who didn't want to let go, not yet, not this way…

All at once, her anger evaporated, her heart melted. _My poor Newt, what have I done to you?_ Sorrow and regret began to constrict her throat, but she took herself in hand. This was Tina’s genius; to know her husband didn't need her tears, not right now. He needed her steady-voiced, heartfelt, stabilizing apology.

"I hope you'll be able to forgive me," she said softly, watching him duck his head. "I never meant to hurt you, my love. I…I was just thinking about myself. As I said at first; I've been selfish, very selfish. In many ways...this is a very different experience for you than it is for me, and I haven't made room for you and your feelings."

The wizard said, just as softly, "I would never stand in the way of any of our children following any path they truly wanted to travel. And I would never resent them for it, please believe me, Tina…but resenting the _situation?_ That's another matter…"

_It's just so wrenching for him to let go when he loves someone. Yet, as hard as he finds it, if it's what they need, he will do it…but it costs him dearly._

"Is everything okay?"

Both Newt and Tina snapped to attention, as their daughter appeared in the office doorway. Tall, of course; all their kids were tall; and slender too, built like her mother, Dinah Nicoletta Leta Scamander had her father's eyes and cheekbones and her mother's nose; her long thick hair was both dark and wavy. She plainly sensed the tension in the air, and her gaze shifted from mother to father warily.

Tina was the first to find her voice. The way she read it, Dinah had not heard any of the harsh things that had been said. She didn't have an inkling they’d been fighting about her. "Great, sweetie, everything's great. Just catching up with your father, we've been so busy lately…" She rose to her feet gracefully and continued, "It just now occurred to me, we need groceries badly. Hardly anything in the house to eat, we're completely out of tea…I'd better go before it gets too late. Sorry, honey," she said, turning back to Newt, "I won't have time to help in the basement just now…"

And to both of her parents' delight, Dinah's face lit up, and she said, "I can help you, Daddy! It's been a while since I did last, I know, I've been running around so much. I've been thinking. I…I want to spend as much time with you and the creatures as I can before I have to go. I'm going to miss them so much…" Her jewel-like eyes finished the thought: _I'm going to miss you, Daddy._  

Tina climbed the stairs, listening to her husband shooing their daughter ahead of him into the basement proper as he paused to blow his nose.

_Epilogue – Fifteen days later_

It is as bad as Tina thought it was going to be. And it’s worse. As soon as they return from the Ministry, where the International Floo Network has its British access point, Newt retreats in silence to his study. There is nothing she can do for him right now. He must do some wrestling of his own with the demons trying to break his heart. In a while, an hour, maybe two, he will venture out into the basement and immerse himself in his current guests and their needs. He will lose himself in them and keep the pain at bay.

What Tina did not anticipate was the fact that she’s human, too.

So when she drops a glass in the kitchen and it breaks, and she goes to flourish her wand to clean it up, she’s not prepared for the flash of memory…the vision of a five-year-old, with thick wavy hair the color hers was when she was small, her little face spattered with familiar freckles that go with her lively, equally-familiar eyes, sitting at the table, drinking from an identical glass…part of a set…maybe the same glass now smashed on the floor…

She takes herself to the downstairs bathroom to weep, behind closed doors.

Some hours later Tina carries a tray with dinner for two down the basement stairs. She is brittle, fragile. She’s worried about Newt. Newt, who always struggles so with loss. Not her. She’s the strong one in these things. Someone has to be.

Then clumsiness born of grief asserts itself the second time that day. She goes to put the tray down on a worktable but misjudges and lets it go with only the edge of it on the surface; not enough to keep the entire thing from toppling over into a loud clanging ruined mess instead of supper. Birds screech at the racket, the mooncalves start, honk and scatter into their burrows, the diricawls pop out of existence in fright, as the noise reverberates thru the magical menagerie. And Newt hurries to find his wife on her knees in the middle of broken dishes and strewn food. She has potato smeared on her cheek, from covering her face with her hands as she sobs.

Whereupon he promptly drops down to his knees beside her and takes her in his arms, holding her close as the storm buffets her. As her tears begin to lessen he brings her to her feet and deals with the heap of crockery, cooked vegetables, vegan burgers, spilled tea and sugar cubes by simply vanishing the whole lot ("There were good dishes left in that, Newt!" "We'll buy new, my darling, it won't break us.").

And then, he took his wife to bed.

More hours later, in a comfortable spoon in their four-poster, the marital bed for so many years now, Tina felt her husband's soft breath on her neck as he nuzzled her just below the ear. Her eyes slid closed with the delicious intimacy of it. Eyes still shut, she whispered, "Just when I think I really know you, sweetheart…" and listened to his gentle laugh in her ear.

"We are gifts we give to each other, endlessly, my Tina. As our lives change, so do the gifts we present to each other. Don't you think?"

"That is so poetic, Newt. Is that from a book?"

"Um, I got it out of a fortune cookie when I was thirteen. Always wanted to have the chance to use it…ouch!"

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are so welcome.


End file.
